Good. We agree on the best solution, no more killing of citizens.
Now why is it happening and how can we fix it? I was pretty close with a lot of police in my early days and up to my 40's, and I never knew them to be as bad as they are now.
The culture has been set for 150 years now. Law enforcement participated in and supported lynchings right through the sixties. Right here in Boston is a dismal history since the 70's which rivals New Jersey or any other city. New York, Detroit, LA - forget about it.
Nearly every famous, educated, morally upright and admirable African-American man I've ever heard of has at least once had a loaded gun pointed at his head by police in random circumstances only because they were there and born black.
Here's a little glimpse into police culture which remains heavily protected and unimproved today, describing the murder of Fred Hampton:
Fred Hampton - Wikipedia
The raid was organized by the office of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, operating in conjunction with the FBI, using officers attached to his office. Hanrahan had recently been strongly criticized by Hampton, who said that Hanrahan's talk about a "war on gangs" was really rhetoric used to enable him to carry out a "war on black youth".
At 4:00 a.m., December 4, 1969, the heavily armed police team arrived at the site, divided into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45 a.m., they stormed into the apartment. Mark Clark, sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap, was on security duty. The police shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. Clark's gun discharged once into the ceiling. This single round was fired when he suffered a reflexive death-convulsion after being shot. This was the only shot fired by the Panthers.
Hampton, drugged by barbiturates by an FBI informant the previous evening after he taught a political education course at a local church, was sleeping on a mattress in the bedroom with his fiancée, Deborah Johnson, who was nine months pregnant with their child. She was forcibly removed from the room by the police officers while Hampton still lay unconscious in bed. Then, the raiding team fired at the head of the south bedroom. Hampton was wounded in the shoulder by the shooting.
Fellow Black Panther Harold Bell said that he heard the following exchange:
"That's Fred Hampton."
"Is he dead?... Bring him out."
"He's barely alive."
"He'll make it."
The injured Panthers said they heard two shots, which were fired point blank at Hampton's head. According to Deborah Johnson, an officer then said:
"He's good and dead now."
Hampton's body was dragged into the doorway of the bedroom and left in a pool of blood. The officers directed their gunfire at the remaining Panthers who had been sleeping in the north bedroom (Satchel, Anderson, Brewer and Harris). Verlina Brewer, Ronald "Doc" Satchel, Blair Anderson, and Brenda Harris were seriously wounded, then beaten and dragged into the street. They were arrested on charges of aggravated assault and the attempted murder of the officers. They were each held on US$100,000 bail.
The fundamental problem is that there has never been any acknowledgment, accountability, commemoration or mourning for the slaughter, massacres, atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by the United States against African-Americans.
Of course there will never be any justice; just as the perpetrators suffered zero consequences.
The solution involves awareness and some minimally existent level of concern, at least a fraction of that felt toward animals, for example. Stop insultingly pretending that each white and black person is born today in 2020 'even Steven', with an identical clean slate.
Forced compassion is possible with the simple establishment, implementation and enforcement of laws. It's not gonna happen any other way.
